Chapter 16
Beneath the Canopy
Sleet sat upon an uncomfortably jagged boulder, fascinated by the smallest of details which confronted him at every turn of his head. He was currently mesmerised by a glistening drop of moisture which was delicately balanced upon the very tip of a purple frond, poised to tip over the edge and drip onto the velvety, mauve, moss-like vegetation which carpeted the floor of the clearing in which they had halted for a momentary respite. As he continued to study the tiny droplet it reached the point at which he would have expected the laws of gravity to have induced it to plummet to the ground. Instead of this, it slowly reached beyond the edge of its supporting foliage and then proceeded to stretch pendulously downwards, forming an elongated elastic drip that reached several inches before detaching itself. Even after that, Sleet was able to track its descent with his eye until it impacted into the moss with a muffled splat. The impression was one of time itself being slowed down by a number of degrees, with the forest that surrounded him glistening softly and the strange alien air threatening to defy the known states of matter, resulting in the almost comforting sense of being under-water.
“It’s almost magical,” he mused to himself, as he drew in another lungful of the dense air. He turned to see what Perry was making of it, conscious of the fact that he had been here previously. The youth was perched upon a similar rock and was staring off into space, apparently unfocused upon their incredibly surreal surroundings. Sleet felt perturbed by the increasing amount of time that Perry seemed to be somewhere else altogether. Although he had castigated him for his lack of willpower, he had to concede that the creatures certainly displayed a fearful array of mental capabilities and that their hold upon Perry must be such that it could not easily be thrown off. He had experienced the piercing gaze of one of the beasts himself - had been held in thrall whilst images from his life past had flickered before his eyes. It had been a particularly unnerving experience that he was not keen to repeat. For all of that, though, he still could not dispel his reluctance to forgive Perry for the direct part he had played in luring him into this present predicament and particularly for the way that both Helen and Moira had been used as helpless pawns in order to ensure his compliance.
“Are you with us?” he asked, still phased by the dull way his own voice sounded in this compressed atmosphere.
Perry sat still a moment longer, the nervous tic at the corner of his eye twitching intermittently, before stirring with a sudden jolt. “What?.....I mean, yes, of course.”
Sleet raised his eyebrow questioningly. “Were they in touch with you then? Can’t you be trusted alone for more than five minutes?”
He referred to the fact that the Shadow creature named Uvall had come to a halt when they reached the clearing, emitting a low grunt. Perry had subsequently announced that they were able to rest here for a while and, without further ado, the beast had turned away and silently slipped back into the jungle, instantly vanishing from sight. Although he had witnessed their physical agility first hand on numerous occasions back on Earth, he was still amazed at how such a hulk of an animal could move around so furtively on the ground. And they were no slouches either - the creature had set a relentless pace this past hour as they had weaved their way through the undergrowth. Sleet had been quite breathless by the time they reached the clearing and was glad of the break, not altogether sure that this was solely down to the ability of his lungs to process the gloopy substance that he was somehow able to breathe.
“No..” Perry began defensively, but then his manner softened somewhat, “I mean that I don’t know. Sometimes, when I receive a clear instruction, I remember and I know that it’s happened. Then at other times I find myself acting without understanding the reasoning behind it - I’m just doing stuff because I know that it has to be done. Does that make sense?”
Sleet made a conscious decision to stop mocking the other man for the time being. Perhaps there was something to be learned by sympathising with him for a change. Anything was worth a shot. “I think so, yes. But most of the time you’re free of them, aren’t you? I mean, they’re not in your head?”
Perry looked wistful, “Yes, or at least it doesn’t feel like they are. But I get the impression that I’m on a short leash and that if I was to try anything expressly against their wishes the alarm bells would ring somewhere and I wouldn’t get very far.”
“Something like helping me to get back home?” Sleet ventured.
Perry chuckled at that. “I couldn’t do that even if I wanted to. The portal is controlled by the Mur-muri. And even they don’t conjure them up at will.”
He thought about that for a moment. “And yet I’ve witnessed Shadows, these Mur-muri as you call them, popping into existence out of nowhere, such as the very first time I ever saw them. And I’ve seen them vanish into thin air too. How is that possible?”
“Not by using the portal,” Perry replied. “You didn’t see a portal on any of those occasions, I suppose?”
Sleet shook his head, “No.”
“As I understand it,” Perry continued, “they would have been using the residual energy that they would have absorbed from travelling through the portal, between worlds. For a short time afterwards it endows them with the capabilities to manifest themselves from place to place, to jump in and out of existence. But the portal itself is an entirely different matter. They have a degree of control over it, as I’ve said, but they do not envisage themselves as having mastery over it. Many Mur-muri were lost during the process of attempting to comprehend the portal that they found on this side. And it takes a number of adepts to open the portal in our world. And to keep it open - that is particularly draining for them.”
This was a lot of information to take in and Sleet knew that he would be mulling it over for some considerable time. One immediate detail jumped out at him, though. “Did you just say that they found the portal?”
“Well, they sensed it, really. It kind of called to them. That’s how I understand it, anyway. Why do you ask?”
“I don’t know, really.” Sleet was perplexed, “I just assumed that it was something that they had created. I guess I had started to believe that nothing was beyond their capabilities.”
“No,” Perry said, “the portal is something that they revere, something that they are fearful of. When it appeared up in the cliff back there many years ago they believed that it had been sent to them by their God, for their salvation.”
Sleet pondered this. “And so they flew up there and used it to rape and pillage London?”
Perry laughed again. “Oh, it was never rape and pillage, Sleet, was it? You know that already. It was a search. A hunt for a single human being. And when I say that the portal was in the cliff I really mean it! That cave didn’t exist, nor did the track that we climbed down. They had to be created because the thing that was calling out to them was buried back there, in the middle of solid rock. You can imagine the effort that it took for them to expose it. And even then they had no idea what it was. They.....” Perry stopped abruptly.
“What is it?” Sleet whispered.
“Uvall,” Perry replied, “he’s on his way back.”
Mention of the creature reminded Sleet of another question that he had intended to ask. “Where has he been to, anyway?”
“To feed,” Perry stated nonchalantly.
This raised a further query that Sleet feared he wouldn’t like the answer to. “And what exactly does Uvall like for dinner?” he asked, deadpan.
“Not you and me, obviously,” Perry answered, “so perhaps we should just be grateful for small mercies.”
At that, the purple foliage directly ahead of Sleet rustled gently and the gigantic creature stepped through it to join them once more. Whether it appeared sated or not, Sleet really could not say. He found it hard to believe that its terrible visage could display mannerisms of any kind. There did however appear to be something clinging to its curled lower lip, something that looked soft and white. Fur, or feathers perhaps? Presumably all that remained of the Mur-muri’s unfortunate meal.
“Hey, Uvall,” he called to the creature, “you’ve got something stuck just there,” he pointed to the corresponding area of his own face.
“Sleet, don’t!” Perry warned, but the monster was already striding across the small clearing on a direct heading for Sleet.
He stood up to meet it. He wasn’t going to cower down, no matter how good an idea that might actually have been. These things wanted him here and here he was, they’d gotten their way. And if he was important enough to be dragged by them through a portal between two worlds then he doubted very much that the beast was going to rip his head off here and now.
The hulking figure came to an abrupt halt no more than a foot away from him. At this point Sleet inwardly congratulated himself for not having as much as flinched. When, however, the creature lowered its demonic head into a position where it hung above his own and uttered a threatening guttural bark, he could not help but turn away. Its breath reeked with a foulness which certainly complemented its horrific appearance.
“You haven’t brushed today either, have you?” he muttered.
“It isn’t a good idea to antagonise him,” Perry advised through clenched teeth, dragging him aside by the arm. “Trust me Sleet, it will be better for us both of us if you just go along with things for a while.”
“You might be right, Perry,” Sleet conceded, “but I’m fresh out of trust, sorry.”
As he stepped back into the surrounding vegetation, following Perry along the path forged by the immense beast that continued to lead the way, he was enveloped once more by the dimness that had surrounded him during the initial leg of this relentless trudge through the forest.
“I haven’t seen proper sunlight since we arrived here, Perry,” he said, the thought occurring to him for the first time. “Nor real darkness for that matter, either. What time of day is it? Do you know?”
Perry chuckled to himself, a trait that was becoming increasingly annoying during this extended spell of being in the youth’s presence. “That’s a trickier question than you might think, Sleet. For what it’s worth I would say that it was late afternoon right now, but there really is very little difference here between night and day.”
“What?” Sleet was perplexed, “there must be a sunrise?"
Perry didn’t reply immediately, his concentration focused upon clambering over the trunk of a fallen tree that temporarily blocked their path. As Perry disappeared over the top of the obstacle Sleet reached out to find some purchase on it. This proved to be more difficult than he imagined, as his fingers pushed into its fleshy outer surface, providing a rather disconcerting sensation. Beneath this soft covering which served as the bark of this species his fingertips encountered a sticky mass of stringy fibres. Gritting his teeth, he reached up to secure a second gooey handhold and then pulled himself aloft, kicking his feet into the trunk in order to clamber up on top of it. From this vantage point, surrounded by the overhanging purple fronds of the encircling trees, he glimpsed Perry’s brown jacket already vanishing amongst the dense flora ahead of him. Don’t wait for me, then! he thought to himself and then had to immediately quash the urge to drop back down and make a run for it in the opposite direction. The two factors which deterred him from this course of action had occurred to him simultaneously. The first pretty obvious problem was that he had no idea either where he was or even where he could go. The second issue was the unnerving probability that the creature, Uvall, could most probably track him down if he was a mile away, let alone some twenty feet. He slithered down the other side of the trunk resignedly, its rough hairs brushing against his cheek as he did so, and then hurried to catch up.
He wove between and beneath several more trunks which had been severely dislodged and had come to rest against each other as opposed to being completely felled. As he reached Perry once more, the lumbering hulk of the Mur-muri slightly further ahead, the youth picked up the conversation without even turning around, as if Sleet had never fallen more than a step behind him. “I’m no astrophysicist, Sleet, nor a geologist for that matter. But I’ll tell you everything I know about this place and then you won’t need to keep questioning me, does that sound fair enough?”
“Sure,” Sleet replied, “you’ll just have to forgive me though, the concept of you giving me the whole picture is a little hard for me to accept.”
Perry, obviously choosing to ignore the slight, ploughed on, ducking low and pushing his way through the broken branches of yet another tree as he did so. “The sun here is tiny compared to what we’re used to back home, only slightly larger than a bright star seen from Earth, really. It crosses the sky at ninety degrees to that glittering band of diamonds that you saw from the cave mouth. They actually seem to provide a lot of the light themselves but, over and above that, there’s a perpetual glow which appears to emanate from the upper atmosphere itself. I can’t explain how or why that might be but the upshot is that it never gets completely dark. It gets slightly brighter as the star crosses over, but that’s about it,” he came up short suddenly in order to avoid colliding with the rear of the massive creature in front of him which had also come to an abrupt halt. Sleet watched keenly as it tilted its huge cranium from side to side, nostrils flared as it sniffed at the air. Then, with a decisive grunt, it sprang forwards once again into the undergrowth.
“And don’t ask me what that string of pearls up there actually is,” Perry continued, gesturing heavenwards, “although I’d guess they’re just rocks. They must form a ring around this world though, like the rings of Saturn or something, cos’ they just keep going around.”
Interesting as this might be, Sleet was hard pressed to imagine how it might help his cause. He was, however, slightly gratified by the fact that an inky darkness was not about to descend upon him as he trudged through this alien jungle with only the treacherous Sean Perry and a monstrous beast from his worst nightmares for company. “And what about down here?” he prompted, “what do you know about this land?”
“I was just coming to that,” Perry admonished, “you should be more patient. Oh, and watch out for those by the way. Best not disturb them.” He pointed down at a small cluster of blue veined bulbs which sprouted from the ground beside the path which the creature had forged.
“What are they?”
“Unpleasant, that’s what they are. If you happen to kick them they disperse a dust cloud which is totally repulsive. It stinks to high heaven and your eyes will be on fire for an hour.”
Sleet considered them as he passed by, “they look like fungi.”
“I suppose they must be. You can see them growing from tree trunks sometimes. Not everything here is as unusual as you’d think.”
“Still looks weird, though. What were you about to say, anyway?” He wanted to keep Perry talking in the hope that he would reveal some potentially useful information.
“I was about to do my best to explain the local geography to you,” Perry said as he swept aside a curtain of purple fronds which were draped across their path. “That cliff back there, what did you notice about it?”
Sleet mulled the question over before responding. “Well, apart from being very high, it also appeared to be extremely wide, like it just disappeared into the distance on either side.”
Perry nodded, “did you see the way it curved along its length?”
“I think so,” he replied, “But I put it down to an optical illusion at the time.”
“Well, it wasn’t. That cliff encircles this whole place. This entire land exists at the bottom of a massive bowl.”
Sleet let that sink in for a moment, “or a crater,” he speculated.
“Mmm...,” Perry seemed to consider this, “I don’t know why that never occurred to me. Perhaps you’re right.”
“Just a thought, that’s all. So what’s down here, apart from endless jungle, that is?”
Perry chuckled at that, “It is pretty much endless jungle, to be honest. Dotted throughout it are the various enclaves, or villages if you like, where some of the Mur-muri live.”
“And the rest of them, where are they?”
“It’s complicated,” Perry said, “but basically the higher castes, the upper classes if you will, reside in a tall spire which is right in the centre of your crater.”
“I think I could make that structure out from up on the cliff. Again, I thought my eyes were deceiving me, but now that you’ve mentioned it I think that’s what it must have been.”
“Probably was. It can certainly be seen from the cliff when the air is clear.”
“I wish it tasted clear,” Sleet joked.
“Nah, you’re used to it now, I can tell,” Perry laughed.
Sensing that the younger man appeared to be at ease now and happy to talk, Sleet decided to delve a little deeper. “So what’s so complicated about their living arrangements then? You make it sound quite simple.”
Perry sighed, “to be honest, I don’t really understand the full ramifications of their class structure. You can try and suss it out for yourself when we arrive.”
“At this spire?” Sleet pounced, “that is our destination then?”
Perry glanced over his shoulder and gave Sleet a look of warning that reminded him that the creature up ahead could well be as actively engaged in monitoring their conversation through the link he shared with it as it was in finding its way through the dense forest.
He decided to change tack. “And above the rim of the bowl? What’s up there, at the top of the cliff?”
“Literally nothing,” Perry answered, “the Mur-muri consider it to be a barren and airless place. They cannot survive there and have no reason to visit. Everything they need to survive is right here.”
“Apart from what they need from us, eh? From our world.”
“Ah, you keep forgetting Sleet. They have what they want from our world. You’re right here aren’t you?”
Sleet grimaced at that. Talk of home caused him to think of Helen once again. He hoped to God that she was safe, although he knew that he would get no additional assurances from Perry in that regard. It was quite ironic, he mused, that had it not been for these Shadows he would never have met her at all. And even if they had bumped into each other under normal circumstances, would a relationship have blossomed between them or was it only their present staggering predicament that could ever have brought them together?
With such thoughts for company he trudged ever deeper into this bewildering and increasingly denser jungle that seemed to fill this land, towards an incomprehensible destination which presumably held his unknown fate.
“It’s almost magical,” he mused to himself, as he drew in another lungful of the dense air. He turned to see what Perry was making of it, conscious of the fact that he had been here previously. The youth was perched upon a similar rock and was staring off into space, apparently unfocused upon their incredibly surreal surroundings. Sleet felt perturbed by the increasing amount of time that Perry seemed to be somewhere else altogether. Although he had castigated him for his lack of willpower, he had to concede that the creatures certainly displayed a fearful array of mental capabilities and that their hold upon Perry must be such that it could not easily be thrown off. He had experienced the piercing gaze of one of the beasts himself - had been held in thrall whilst images from his life past had flickered before his eyes. It had been a particularly unnerving experience that he was not keen to repeat. For all of that, though, he still could not dispel his reluctance to forgive Perry for the direct part he had played in luring him into this present predicament and particularly for the way that both Helen and Moira had been used as helpless pawns in order to ensure his compliance.
“Are you with us?” he asked, still phased by the dull way his own voice sounded in this compressed atmosphere.
Perry sat still a moment longer, the nervous tic at the corner of his eye twitching intermittently, before stirring with a sudden jolt. “What?.....I mean, yes, of course.”
Sleet raised his eyebrow questioningly. “Were they in touch with you then? Can’t you be trusted alone for more than five minutes?”
He referred to the fact that the Shadow creature named Uvall had come to a halt when they reached the clearing, emitting a low grunt. Perry had subsequently announced that they were able to rest here for a while and, without further ado, the beast had turned away and silently slipped back into the jungle, instantly vanishing from sight. Although he had witnessed their physical agility first hand on numerous occasions back on Earth, he was still amazed at how such a hulk of an animal could move around so furtively on the ground. And they were no slouches either - the creature had set a relentless pace this past hour as they had weaved their way through the undergrowth. Sleet had been quite breathless by the time they reached the clearing and was glad of the break, not altogether sure that this was solely down to the ability of his lungs to process the gloopy substance that he was somehow able to breathe.
“No..” Perry began defensively, but then his manner softened somewhat, “I mean that I don’t know. Sometimes, when I receive a clear instruction, I remember and I know that it’s happened. Then at other times I find myself acting without understanding the reasoning behind it - I’m just doing stuff because I know that it has to be done. Does that make sense?”
Sleet made a conscious decision to stop mocking the other man for the time being. Perhaps there was something to be learned by sympathising with him for a change. Anything was worth a shot. “I think so, yes. But most of the time you’re free of them, aren’t you? I mean, they’re not in your head?”
Perry looked wistful, “Yes, or at least it doesn’t feel like they are. But I get the impression that I’m on a short leash and that if I was to try anything expressly against their wishes the alarm bells would ring somewhere and I wouldn’t get very far.”
“Something like helping me to get back home?” Sleet ventured.
Perry chuckled at that. “I couldn’t do that even if I wanted to. The portal is controlled by the Mur-muri. And even they don’t conjure them up at will.”
He thought about that for a moment. “And yet I’ve witnessed Shadows, these Mur-muri as you call them, popping into existence out of nowhere, such as the very first time I ever saw them. And I’ve seen them vanish into thin air too. How is that possible?”
“Not by using the portal,” Perry replied. “You didn’t see a portal on any of those occasions, I suppose?”
Sleet shook his head, “No.”
“As I understand it,” Perry continued, “they would have been using the residual energy that they would have absorbed from travelling through the portal, between worlds. For a short time afterwards it endows them with the capabilities to manifest themselves from place to place, to jump in and out of existence. But the portal itself is an entirely different matter. They have a degree of control over it, as I’ve said, but they do not envisage themselves as having mastery over it. Many Mur-muri were lost during the process of attempting to comprehend the portal that they found on this side. And it takes a number of adepts to open the portal in our world. And to keep it open - that is particularly draining for them.”
This was a lot of information to take in and Sleet knew that he would be mulling it over for some considerable time. One immediate detail jumped out at him, though. “Did you just say that they found the portal?”
“Well, they sensed it, really. It kind of called to them. That’s how I understand it, anyway. Why do you ask?”
“I don’t know, really.” Sleet was perplexed, “I just assumed that it was something that they had created. I guess I had started to believe that nothing was beyond their capabilities.”
“No,” Perry said, “the portal is something that they revere, something that they are fearful of. When it appeared up in the cliff back there many years ago they believed that it had been sent to them by their God, for their salvation.”
Sleet pondered this. “And so they flew up there and used it to rape and pillage London?”
Perry laughed again. “Oh, it was never rape and pillage, Sleet, was it? You know that already. It was a search. A hunt for a single human being. And when I say that the portal was in the cliff I really mean it! That cave didn’t exist, nor did the track that we climbed down. They had to be created because the thing that was calling out to them was buried back there, in the middle of solid rock. You can imagine the effort that it took for them to expose it. And even then they had no idea what it was. They.....” Perry stopped abruptly.
“What is it?” Sleet whispered.
“Uvall,” Perry replied, “he’s on his way back.”
Mention of the creature reminded Sleet of another question that he had intended to ask. “Where has he been to, anyway?”
“To feed,” Perry stated nonchalantly.
This raised a further query that Sleet feared he wouldn’t like the answer to. “And what exactly does Uvall like for dinner?” he asked, deadpan.
“Not you and me, obviously,” Perry answered, “so perhaps we should just be grateful for small mercies.”
At that, the purple foliage directly ahead of Sleet rustled gently and the gigantic creature stepped through it to join them once more. Whether it appeared sated or not, Sleet really could not say. He found it hard to believe that its terrible visage could display mannerisms of any kind. There did however appear to be something clinging to its curled lower lip, something that looked soft and white. Fur, or feathers perhaps? Presumably all that remained of the Mur-muri’s unfortunate meal.
“Hey, Uvall,” he called to the creature, “you’ve got something stuck just there,” he pointed to the corresponding area of his own face.
“Sleet, don’t!” Perry warned, but the monster was already striding across the small clearing on a direct heading for Sleet.
He stood up to meet it. He wasn’t going to cower down, no matter how good an idea that might actually have been. These things wanted him here and here he was, they’d gotten their way. And if he was important enough to be dragged by them through a portal between two worlds then he doubted very much that the beast was going to rip his head off here and now.
The hulking figure came to an abrupt halt no more than a foot away from him. At this point Sleet inwardly congratulated himself for not having as much as flinched. When, however, the creature lowered its demonic head into a position where it hung above his own and uttered a threatening guttural bark, he could not help but turn away. Its breath reeked with a foulness which certainly complemented its horrific appearance.
“You haven’t brushed today either, have you?” he muttered.
“It isn’t a good idea to antagonise him,” Perry advised through clenched teeth, dragging him aside by the arm. “Trust me Sleet, it will be better for us both of us if you just go along with things for a while.”
“You might be right, Perry,” Sleet conceded, “but I’m fresh out of trust, sorry.”
As he stepped back into the surrounding vegetation, following Perry along the path forged by the immense beast that continued to lead the way, he was enveloped once more by the dimness that had surrounded him during the initial leg of this relentless trudge through the forest.
“I haven’t seen proper sunlight since we arrived here, Perry,” he said, the thought occurring to him for the first time. “Nor real darkness for that matter, either. What time of day is it? Do you know?”
Perry chuckled to himself, a trait that was becoming increasingly annoying during this extended spell of being in the youth’s presence. “That’s a trickier question than you might think, Sleet. For what it’s worth I would say that it was late afternoon right now, but there really is very little difference here between night and day.”
“What?” Sleet was perplexed, “there must be a sunrise?"
Perry didn’t reply immediately, his concentration focused upon clambering over the trunk of a fallen tree that temporarily blocked their path. As Perry disappeared over the top of the obstacle Sleet reached out to find some purchase on it. This proved to be more difficult than he imagined, as his fingers pushed into its fleshy outer surface, providing a rather disconcerting sensation. Beneath this soft covering which served as the bark of this species his fingertips encountered a sticky mass of stringy fibres. Gritting his teeth, he reached up to secure a second gooey handhold and then pulled himself aloft, kicking his feet into the trunk in order to clamber up on top of it. From this vantage point, surrounded by the overhanging purple fronds of the encircling trees, he glimpsed Perry’s brown jacket already vanishing amongst the dense flora ahead of him. Don’t wait for me, then! he thought to himself and then had to immediately quash the urge to drop back down and make a run for it in the opposite direction. The two factors which deterred him from this course of action had occurred to him simultaneously. The first pretty obvious problem was that he had no idea either where he was or even where he could go. The second issue was the unnerving probability that the creature, Uvall, could most probably track him down if he was a mile away, let alone some twenty feet. He slithered down the other side of the trunk resignedly, its rough hairs brushing against his cheek as he did so, and then hurried to catch up.
He wove between and beneath several more trunks which had been severely dislodged and had come to rest against each other as opposed to being completely felled. As he reached Perry once more, the lumbering hulk of the Mur-muri slightly further ahead, the youth picked up the conversation without even turning around, as if Sleet had never fallen more than a step behind him. “I’m no astrophysicist, Sleet, nor a geologist for that matter. But I’ll tell you everything I know about this place and then you won’t need to keep questioning me, does that sound fair enough?”
“Sure,” Sleet replied, “you’ll just have to forgive me though, the concept of you giving me the whole picture is a little hard for me to accept.”
Perry, obviously choosing to ignore the slight, ploughed on, ducking low and pushing his way through the broken branches of yet another tree as he did so. “The sun here is tiny compared to what we’re used to back home, only slightly larger than a bright star seen from Earth, really. It crosses the sky at ninety degrees to that glittering band of diamonds that you saw from the cave mouth. They actually seem to provide a lot of the light themselves but, over and above that, there’s a perpetual glow which appears to emanate from the upper atmosphere itself. I can’t explain how or why that might be but the upshot is that it never gets completely dark. It gets slightly brighter as the star crosses over, but that’s about it,” he came up short suddenly in order to avoid colliding with the rear of the massive creature in front of him which had also come to an abrupt halt. Sleet watched keenly as it tilted its huge cranium from side to side, nostrils flared as it sniffed at the air. Then, with a decisive grunt, it sprang forwards once again into the undergrowth.
“And don’t ask me what that string of pearls up there actually is,” Perry continued, gesturing heavenwards, “although I’d guess they’re just rocks. They must form a ring around this world though, like the rings of Saturn or something, cos’ they just keep going around.”
Interesting as this might be, Sleet was hard pressed to imagine how it might help his cause. He was, however, slightly gratified by the fact that an inky darkness was not about to descend upon him as he trudged through this alien jungle with only the treacherous Sean Perry and a monstrous beast from his worst nightmares for company. “And what about down here?” he prompted, “what do you know about this land?”
“I was just coming to that,” Perry admonished, “you should be more patient. Oh, and watch out for those by the way. Best not disturb them.” He pointed down at a small cluster of blue veined bulbs which sprouted from the ground beside the path which the creature had forged.
“What are they?”
“Unpleasant, that’s what they are. If you happen to kick them they disperse a dust cloud which is totally repulsive. It stinks to high heaven and your eyes will be on fire for an hour.”
Sleet considered them as he passed by, “they look like fungi.”
“I suppose they must be. You can see them growing from tree trunks sometimes. Not everything here is as unusual as you’d think.”
“Still looks weird, though. What were you about to say, anyway?” He wanted to keep Perry talking in the hope that he would reveal some potentially useful information.
“I was about to do my best to explain the local geography to you,” Perry said as he swept aside a curtain of purple fronds which were draped across their path. “That cliff back there, what did you notice about it?”
Sleet mulled the question over before responding. “Well, apart from being very high, it also appeared to be extremely wide, like it just disappeared into the distance on either side.”
Perry nodded, “did you see the way it curved along its length?”
“I think so,” he replied, “But I put it down to an optical illusion at the time.”
“Well, it wasn’t. That cliff encircles this whole place. This entire land exists at the bottom of a massive bowl.”
Sleet let that sink in for a moment, “or a crater,” he speculated.
“Mmm...,” Perry seemed to consider this, “I don’t know why that never occurred to me. Perhaps you’re right.”
“Just a thought, that’s all. So what’s down here, apart from endless jungle, that is?”
Perry chuckled at that, “It is pretty much endless jungle, to be honest. Dotted throughout it are the various enclaves, or villages if you like, where some of the Mur-muri live.”
“And the rest of them, where are they?”
“It’s complicated,” Perry said, “but basically the higher castes, the upper classes if you will, reside in a tall spire which is right in the centre of your crater.”
“I think I could make that structure out from up on the cliff. Again, I thought my eyes were deceiving me, but now that you’ve mentioned it I think that’s what it must have been.”
“Probably was. It can certainly be seen from the cliff when the air is clear.”
“I wish it tasted clear,” Sleet joked.
“Nah, you’re used to it now, I can tell,” Perry laughed.
Sensing that the younger man appeared to be at ease now and happy to talk, Sleet decided to delve a little deeper. “So what’s so complicated about their living arrangements then? You make it sound quite simple.”
Perry sighed, “to be honest, I don’t really understand the full ramifications of their class structure. You can try and suss it out for yourself when we arrive.”
“At this spire?” Sleet pounced, “that is our destination then?”
Perry glanced over his shoulder and gave Sleet a look of warning that reminded him that the creature up ahead could well be as actively engaged in monitoring their conversation through the link he shared with it as it was in finding its way through the dense forest.
He decided to change tack. “And above the rim of the bowl? What’s up there, at the top of the cliff?”
“Literally nothing,” Perry answered, “the Mur-muri consider it to be a barren and airless place. They cannot survive there and have no reason to visit. Everything they need to survive is right here.”
“Apart from what they need from us, eh? From our world.”
“Ah, you keep forgetting Sleet. They have what they want from our world. You’re right here aren’t you?”
Sleet grimaced at that. Talk of home caused him to think of Helen once again. He hoped to God that she was safe, although he knew that he would get no additional assurances from Perry in that regard. It was quite ironic, he mused, that had it not been for these Shadows he would never have met her at all. And even if they had bumped into each other under normal circumstances, would a relationship have blossomed between them or was it only their present staggering predicament that could ever have brought them together?
With such thoughts for company he trudged ever deeper into this bewildering and increasingly denser jungle that seemed to fill this land, towards an incomprehensible destination which presumably held his unknown fate.